Gemco
Gemco was an American, particularly California chain of discount membership department stores that was owned by San Leandro-based Lucky Stores, a California supermarket company which has since been acquired in the 1980s by American Stores Company, which was later acquired by Albertsons in 1999. It operated from 1959 until closing in late 1986. A number of the west coast stores were sold to Target which fueled their entry into California. Gemco had a version called Memco, also owned by Lucky Stores, that operated stores in the Chicagoland and the Washington, D.C. areas.
History
Gemco was first established in Anaheim, California in October 1959. A year later, the company was purchased by Lucky Stores, which added the supermarket element and expanded Gemco into a chain. Business and profitability continued to be healthy for over 20 years until a series of unsuccessful leveraged takeover attempts from other companies were made on its parent company, Lucky Stores. Lucky, to avoid such hostile takeover attempts, eventually decided it was best to liquidate Gemco entirely. This liquidation occurred in early 1987. Target has since taken over and remodeled many of Gemco's former prime business locations.
Name, colors and logo
"GEMCO" never was an acronym, despite rumors ("Government Employees' Merchandising Company," etc. probably stemming from a similar store named Fedco in southern California) to the contrary. The letters were simply an easily pronounced and remembered name. Brown (with tan accents) was Gemco's original main exterior background color, and the letters "GEMCO" were originally in red. An early 1980s redesign changed the chain's main exterior background color to blue (with light blue accenting), and its letter coloring in its logo to white (adding a yellow diamond on top of the "M"). The name may also be associated with the jewelry-camera concessionaire, Gem Distributing Company, which was based in Long Beach and which began operations during WWII by selling jewelry and engagement rings in particular to sailors on leave. A small number of Gem's earliest employees were transferred to Gemco locations near Long Beach.
Offerings and innovations
An early example of what would become a hypermarket, Gemco offered one stop shopping for everything from garden supplies to groceries, and regular department store offerings as well. Its concessionaires included gasoline (located outside and away from the front entrance) and jewelry. One innovation the store offered - found nowhere else at the time - was the storing and delivery of already purchased groceries when the member was through shopping the rest of the store. A numbered plastic card was placed on the cart(s) and its match was given to the customer. When the member was done shopping and ready to leave the premises, the member merely needed to drive to the side of the store where the plastic card was given to the security guard. The guard would call for a courtesy clerk to deliver the groceries, and the clerk would load them into said member's vehicle gratuity-free. Niceties such as this won many new members to Gemco, and created repeat business, adding to Gemco's success.
Gemco was a preferred employer in many of the locations in which it did business. Unlike may other "discount" chains (e.g. Payless) Gemco employed union members of the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers). The benefits and wages offered to Gemco employees helped it attract and retain a more highly qualified workforce than was typical of "discount" stores at that time. Vestiges of the longer-tenured employees of Gemco can still be found today at many Costco stores (also a membership department store) in the San Francisco Bay Area, where management includes many former Gemco management employees.
Gemco also offered a credit department to help increase sales. It was particularly busy each year during the Christmas shopping period.
As a trial few Gemco stores offered free babysitting while an adult was shopping in the store. The adult would drop off the child in the designated area of the store and would be given a ticket with a number on it. When the adult is done shopping they would give the cashier ticket who in return called the babysitting dept and a clerk would bring the child out to the parent. The parent could also pick the child up directly as well. After about 1 year of trial Gemco ceased operation of this trial. California law required a caregiver in a commercial operation to be licensed and insured as a daycare.
Memco
The East Coast stores, located in the Washington, D.C., area, were called Memco instead of Gemco to avoid confusion with an already existing area chain called GEM. Memco stores had a blue color scheme on its walls and signage. Memco honored Gemco membership cards, and vice versa.
Memco entered the Washington, DC market in 1969 with 100,000 square foot stores on Little River Turnpike at Braddock Road in Annandale, Virginia and on Allentown Road in Camp Springs, Maryland.["Chain to Open One-Stop Stores Here," The Washington Post, Times Herald, Dec 19, 1969, p. D8.] When the chain announced its exit from the market in December 1982, there were 13 stores (including one in Richmond, Virginia, and two in the Baltimore area), two of which had opened just two months earlier, and a 14th store was under construction.["Washington-Area Memco Stores to Shut in January," by Jerry Knight, The Washington Post, December 28, 1982, p. A1.] The closings idled 1,200 retail workers.["With Memco Leaving, Competition Heats Up," by Rudolph A. Pyatt, Jr., The Washington Post, Jan 12, 1983, p. F1. ]All of those locations were converted to Bradlees upon Memco's closing.["Retailers Intensify Fight Here,"by Rudolph A. Pyatt, Jr., The Washington Post, Jan 5, 1983, p. D1.] Several of the former locations are currently open as Home Depot or Kmart.
Further reading
 "But Moods Are Worlds Apart; Memco Executives, Employes Look Ahead," The Washington Post, December 29, 1982
"Bradlees to enter D.C. with 10 units," Women's Wear Daily, August 8, 1983
External links
Gemco Department Stores nostalgic website
Lucky Stores entry at Groceteria
DCGrocery MSN List 2002 photograph of vacant Memco store, Camp Springs, Md., accessed Aug 29, 2008]
DCGrocery MSN List 2007 photograph of vacant Memco store, Camp Springs, Md., accessed Aug 29, 2008]
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